Wednesday, 11 March 2009

  • EVER HAD A BAD DAY? -WWW.GRINDMODECONNECT.COM

    http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"> name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"> name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 12"> name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 12">

         Each week we, as people, are bombarded with images of supposed celebrities, alongside comments that are dreamed up over coffee in media offices around the world (“Just look at her dress – how wonderful / ugly / whorish” *delete as appropriate). Of course, many people make a living from this – photographers, editors and even the stars themselves, right down to the girl who works in the Starbucks around the corner. That’s how the economy works, with each section having a knock-on effect on the next.

         However, while the girl in Starbucks is selling something real, in that you can drink it, what are the celebrity gossip pages selling? They are selling two things, it seems. They sell fact and fiction, or dreams and normality. With one stroke they show us the red carpet shots from a glamorous premiere, we see the flashy cars, bespoke suits, designer dresses, camera flashes and air kisses. We see a champagne lifestyle, holidays in whichever destination is deemed the place to be (seen) and luxury mansions. We are sold a dream. A “wouldn’t it be nice.” However, even as we place our admiration or adoration on the perfect bodies, elite social circles and ostentatious displays of wealth, the cult of celebrity has a way of introducing a dirty side. Like a glass of wine across a designer frock, the sellers of celebrity bring those in the limelight back down to earth.

         The slightest fashion misstep or a bad hair day can be enough to set off a media-driven frenzy of neck rolling and head shaking. Let alone a real drama such as that which Chris Brown and Rihanna have been caught up in of late.

         The problem is that all too often we are encouraged to see celebrities as pillars of society, as bastions of grace and good taste. However, this is a tall order – one, which even those who are trained in such a demanding dignity, such as the British Royal Family – can find leads to easy failure. Where we should be glad of someone’s skill as a rapper, actor, musician or sportsperson it is easy to find ourselves wanting them to become a reflection of a perfect society. Whatever, nuance that ‘society’ may take on – as of course we expect different behaviour from The President, Will Smith and Snoop Dogg. 

         Perhaps it’s about time we began to redraw the blueprint of celebrity. When a child says “I want to be famous” we have to ask, for doing what? A famous painter, architect, musician, sportsman? To see a goal is one thing, but when that goal is simply a media-driven fame-for-any-reason mentality then we need to wonder what we are doing. And yes, positive role models are a good thing for all people – it’s just we need to remember that, without excusing the inexcusable, even positive role models might have a bad day…

     
    Slim (Managing Editor – Grind Mode Media LLC) -WWW.GRINDMODECONNECT.COM

  • Choose Identity

  • Give eProps (?)

  • New! You can now edit your comments for 15 minutes after submitting.